CONSERVATIVE PARTY: 1951
We are confronted with a critical Election which may well be the
turning point in the fortunes and even the life of Britain. We
cannot go on with this evenly balanced Party strife and hold our
own in the world, or even earn our living. The prime need is for
a stable government with several years before it, during which
time national interests must be faithfully held far above party
feuds or tactics. We need a new Government not biased by privilege
or interest or cramped by doctrinal prejudices or inflamed by
the passions of class warfare. Such a Government only the Conservative
and Unionist Party can to-day provide.

There must be no illusions about our difficulties and dangers.
It is better to face them squarely as we did in 1940. The Conservative
Party, who since victory have had no responsibility for the events
which have led us to where we are now, offers no bribes to the
electors. We will do our best to serve them and to make things
better all round, but we do not blind ourselves to the difficulties
that have to be overcome, or the time that will be required to
bring us back to our rightful position in the world, and to revive
the vigour of our national life and impulse.

We all seek and pray for peace. A mighty union of nations tread
that path together, but we all know that peace can only come through
their united strength and faithful brotherhood.

Contrast our position to-day with what it was six years ago. Then
all our foes had yielded. We all had a right to believe and hope
that the fear of war would not afflict our generation nor our
children. We were respected, honoured and admired throughout the
world. We were a united people at home, and it was only by being
united that we had survived the deadly perils through which we
had come and had kept the flag of freedom flying through the fateful
year when we were alone. There, at any rate, is a great foundation
and inspiration. Everyone knows how the aftermath of war brings
extraordinary difficulties. With national unity we could have
overcome them. But what has happened since those days?

The attempt to impose a doctrinaire Socialism upon an Island which
has grown great and famous by free enterprise has inflicted serious
injury upon our strength and prosperity. Nationalisation has proved
itself a failure which has resulted in heavy losses to the taxpayer
or the consumer, or both. It has not given general satisfaction
to the wage-earners in the nationalised industries. It has impaired
the relations of the Trade Unions with their members. In more
than one nationalised industry the wage-earners are ill-content
with the change from the private employers, with whom they could
negotiate on equal terms through the Trade Unions, to the all-powerful
and remote officials in Whitehall.

Our finances have been brought into grave disorder. No British
Government in peace time has ever had the power or spent the money
in the vast extent and reckless manner of our present rulers.
Apart from the twothousand millions they have borrowed
or obtained from the United States and the Dominions, they have
spent more than 10 million pounds a day, or 22 thousand millions
in their six years. No community living in a world of competing
nations can possibly afford such frantic extravagances. Devaluation
was the offspring of wild, profuse expenditure, and the evils
which we suffer to-day are the inevitable progeny of that wanton
way of living.

A Conservative Government will cut out all unnecessary Government
expenditure, simplify the administrative machine, and prune waste
and extravagance in every department.

The greatest national misfortune which we now endure is the ever
falling value of our money, or, to put it in other words, the
ever-increasing cost, measured in work and skill, of everything
we buy. British taxation is higher than in any country outside
the Communist world. It is higher by eight hundred millions a
year than it was in the height of the war. We have a population
of fifty millions depending on imports of food and raw materials
which we have to win by our exertions, ingenuity, and craftsmanship.
Since Devaluation it takes nearly twelve hours of work with hands
or brains to buy across the dollar exchange what we could have
got before for eight hours. We have now to give from one-quarter
to one-third more of our life's strength, skill and output of
every kind and quality to get the same intake as we did before
Devaluation two years ago. We pay more for what we buy from abroad.
we get less for what we sell. That is what Socialist Devaluation
has meant. This costly expedient has not prevented a new financial
crisis.

We are a hard working people. We are second to none in ability
or enterprise so far as we are allowed to use these gifts. We
now have the only Socialist Government in the Empire and Commonwealth.
Of all the countries in the world Britain is the one least capable
of bearing the Socialist system.

The Nation now has the chance of rebuilding its life at home and
of strengthening its position abroad. We must free ourselves from
our impediments. Of all impediments the class war is the worst.
At the time when a growing measure of national unity is more than
ever necessary, the Socialist Party hope to gain another lease
of power by fomenting class hatred and appealing to moods of greed
and envy.

Within the limits of a statement of this kind, it is only possible
to deal with some of the main questions now before us. We wish
to be judged by deeds and their results and not by words and their
applause. We seek to proclaim a theme, rather than write a prospectus.
Many years ago I used the phrase, "Bring the rearguard in."
This meant basic standards of life and labour, the duty of the
strong to help the weak, and of the successful to establish tolerable
conditions for the less fortunate. That policy is adopted by all
Parties to-day. But now we have the new Socialist doctrine. It
is no longer, "Bring the rearguard in," but "Keep
the vanguard back." There is no means by which this Island
can support its present population except by allowing its native
genius to flourish and fructify. We cannot possibly keep ourselves
alive without the individual effort, invention, contrivance, thrift
and good housekeeping of our people.

In 1945 I said:

"What we desire is freedom; what we need is abundance. Freedom
and abundance- these must be our aims. The production of new wealth
is far more beneficial than class and Party fights about the liquidation
of old wealth. We must try to share blessings and not miseries.
The production of new wealth must precede common wealth, otherwise
there will only be common poverty.

It is because these simple truths have been denied and our people
duped by idle hopes and false doctrine that the value of our money
has fallen so grievously and the confidence of the world in Britain
has been impaired. Confidence and currency are interdependent
and restoring confidence by sound finance is one of the ways in
which the value of our money may be sustained and the rising cost
of living checked.

The Conservative aim is to increase our national output. Here
is the surest way to keep our people fully employed, to halt the
rising cost of living, and to preserve our social services. Hard work, good management, thrift - all must receive their due incentive and reward.

In the wider world outside this Island we put first the safety,
progress and cohesion of the British Empire and Commonwealth of
Nations. We must all stand together and help each other with all
our strength both in Defence and Trade. To foster commerce within
the Empire we shall maintain Imperial Preference. In our home
market the Empire producer will have a place second only to the
home producer.

Next, there is the unity of the English-speaking peoples who together
number hundreds of millions. They have only to act in harmony
to preserve their own freedom and the general peace.

On these solid foundations we should all continue to labour for
a United Europe, including in the course of time those unhappy
countries still behind the Iron Curtain.

These are the three pillars of the United Nations Organisation
which, if Soviet Russia becomes the fourth, would open to all
the toiling millions of the world an era of moral and material
advance undreamed of hitherto among men. There was a time in our
hour of victory when this object seemed to be within our reach.
Even now, in spite of the clouds and confusion into which we have
since fallen, we must not abandon the supreme hope and design.

For all these purposes we support the Rearmament programme on
which the Socialist Government have embarked. We believe however
that far better value could be got for the immense manpower and
sums of money which are involved. Special sacrifices are required
from us all for the sake of our survival as free democratic communities
and the prevention of war.

Our theme is that in normal times there should be the freest competition
and that good wages and profits fairly earned under the law are
a public gain both to the Nation and to all in industry-management
and wage-earner alike. But the vast Rearmament policy of spending
five thousand millions in three years on Defence inevitably distorts
the ordinary working of supply and demand, therefore justice requires
special arrangements for the emergency. We shall set our face
against the fortuitous rise in company profits because of the
abnormal process of Rearmament. We shall accordingly impose a
form of Excess Profits Tax to operate only during this exceptional
period.

At the same time a revision of the existing system of taxation
on commercial and industrial profits is required. Relief will
be given in cases where profits are ploughed back and used for
the renewal of plant and equipment.

We believe in the necessity for reducing to the minimum possible
all restrictive practices on both sides of industry, and we shall
rely on a greatly strengthened Monopolies Commission to seek,
and enable Parliament to correct, any operations in restraint
of trade, including of course in the nationalised industries.

I will now mention some other practical steps we shall take.

We shall stop all further nationalisation.

The Iron and Steel Act will be repealed and the Steel industry
allowed to resume its achievements of the war and post-war years.
To supervise prices and development we shall revive, if necessary
with added powers, the former Iron and Steel Board representing
the State, the management, labour, and consumers.

Publicly-owned rail and road transport will be reorganised into
regional groups of workable size. Private road hauliers will be
given the chance to return to business, and private lorries will
no longer be crippled by the twenty-five mile limit.

Coal will remain nationalised. There will be more decentralisation
and stimulation of local initiative and loyalties, but wage negotiations
will remain on a national basis.

All industries remaining nationalised will come within the purview
of the Monopolies' Commission and there will also be strict Parliamentary
review of their activities.

We seek to create an industrial system that is not only efficient
but human. The Conservative Workers' Charter for Industry will
be brought into being as early as possible, and extended to agriculture
wherever practicable. The scheme will be worked out with trade
unions and employers, and then laid before Parliament.

There you have a clear plan of action in this field.

Housing is the first of the social services. It is also one of
the keys to increased productivity. Work, family life, health
and education are all undermined by overcrowded homes. Therefore
a Conservative and Unionist Government will give housing a priority
second only to national defence. Our target remains 300,000 houses
a year. There should be no reduction in the number of houses and
flats built to let but more freedom must be given to the private
builder. In a property-owning democracy, the more people who own
their homes the better.

In Education and in Health some of the most crying needs are not
being met. For the money now being spent we will provide better
services and so fulfil the high hopes we all held when we planned
the improvements during the war.

The whole system of town planning and development charges needs
drastic overhaul.

We shall review the position of pensioners, including war pensioners,
and see that the hardest needs are met first. The care and comfort
of the elderly is a sacred trust. Some of them prefer to remain
at work and there must be encouragement for them to do so.

To obtain more food practical knowledge and business experience
must be released to comb the world for greater supplies.

We shall maintain our system of guaranteed agricultural prices
and markets and protect British horticulture from foreign dumpers.
We have untilled acres and much marginal land. Farmers and merchants
should work together to improve distribution in the interests
of the public.

Subject to the needs of Rearmament, the utmost will be done to
provide better housing, water supplies, and drainage, electricity
and transport in rural areas.

The fishing industry will be protected from unrestricted foreign
dumping. Every effort will be made by international agreement
to prevent over-fishing.

Food subsidies cannot be radically changed in present circumstances,
but later we hope to simplify the system and by increases in family
allowances, taxation changes and other methods, to ensure that
public money is spent on those who need help and not, as at present,
upon all classes indiscriminately.

Apart from proposals to help Britain to stand on her own feet
by increasing productivity, we must guard the British way of life,
hallowed by centuries of tradition. We have fought tyrants at
home and abroad to win and preserve the institutions of constitutional
Monarchy and Parliamentary government. From Britain across the
generations our message has gone forth to all parts of the globe.
However well-meaning many of the present Socialist leaders may
be, there is no doubt that in its complete development a Socialist
State, monopolising production, distribution and exchange, would
be fatal to individual freedom. We look on the Government as the
servant and not as the masters of the people. Multiplying orders
and rules should be reduced, and the whole system kept under more
rigorous Parliamentary scrutiny. We shall call an all-Party conference
to consider proposals for the reform of the House of Lords.

We shall restore the University constituencies, which have been
disfranchised contrary to the agreement reached by all three Parties
during the war.

The United Kingdom cannot he kept in a Whitehall straitjacket.
The Unionist policy for Scotland, including the practical steps
proposed for effective Scottish control of Scottish affairs, will
he vigorously pressed forward.

There will he a Cabinet Minister charged with the care of Welsh
affairs,

We shall seek to restore to Local Government the confidence and
responsibility it has lost under Socialism.

All these and other issues of the day can only he stated briefly
in our Party Manifesto. A much fuller account will he given of
them in Britain Strong and Free which will he published
in a few days.

I close with a simple declaration of our faith. The Conservative
and Unionist Party stands not for any section of the people but
for all. In this spirit, we will do our utmost to grapple with
the increasing difficulties into which our country has been plunged.